Thoughtful Pieces from Keghart.com‏

Nagging Doubts Persist
Keghart.com team editorial

31 May 2010

They tell us Turkey is changing for the better.
They tell us Turkey is becoming a vibrant secular democracy.
They tell us the bad old days of the fascist generals are gone.
They tell us 200,000 Turks turned up at Hrant Dink’s funeral in early 2008.

Turkish publishers are putting Genocide books on the market. This year

Genocide commemorations received the widest Turkish media coverage

ever. There was a groundbreaking two-day symposium on the Genocide

in Ankara this year. None of the speakers was a Genocide denialist. The

speakers talked even about confiscated Armenian property, reparations,

and how to confront the past. In mid-April, at the International Poetry

Festival in Istanbul, a poet from Armenia won a prize for his poem about

the Genocide.

We are not deaf or blind. We want to see Turkey change. We have an

interest in seeing a progressive Turkey. For one, an enlightened Turkey

is more likely to face the country’s Armenian Question: the Genocide,

reparations and restitution. An enlightened Turkey would also liberate

Turks from centuries of obscurantist, corrupt and despotic regimes which

have bred racism, violence and religious fundamentalism.

But we have nagging doubts. While Turkey seems to be changing, it’s

still true that:

--Turkish Penal Code Article 301 re ‘insulting Turkishness’ remains in

force --Ankara not only denies the Genocide, it has intensified its

anti-Armenian propaganda campaign ---Ankara continues its chock hold

on Armenia by blockading that tiny, landlocked country, and demanding

that we hand over Armenian Artsakh to usurper Azeris
--Ankara is arming and training Azeris against Armenia and Artsakh

--Ankara continues the Turkification of Armenian toponyms and the

destruction of Armenian monuments --Ankara’s oppression of Kurds,

Alevis, Armenians, and other minorities continues unabated, while the

Turkish Army illegally occupies a large part of Cyprus.

Armenians also wonder about the much-ballyhooed Turkish democracy.

Despite its seeming independence, we suspect the Prime Minister

Recep Erdogan’s government remains in power because the cunning

generals have allowed him slack: the covert strategy is to allow Erdogan

make brave statements and thus persuade Europeans that Turkey is

democratic and thus deserving of membership in the European club.

Last year’s Protocol Tango with Armenia had the same goal: to qualify

for EU membership, Turkey has to have open borders with all its

neighbours.

In light of the openness in the coverage of the Genocide in Turkey in the

past year, Armenians are naturally asking themselves: “Are the righteous,

democratic, humanist Turks being used by Ankara to improve its creds,

to impress Barak Obama and the Western world? Armenians also wonder

how representative and influential are the enlightened Turks who raised

their voices and shouted “We are all Hrant Dink” at the funeral of the

Armenian journalist. Ragip Zarakolu, Orhan Pamuk, Taner Akcam, Sait

Cetinoglu, Mehmut Konuk, Fikret Baskaya, Baskin Oran, Mahir Sayin,

and Asli Comu are people we are eager to know and to befriend.

However, this handful of intellectuals, writers and scholars is not

representative of 12-million-inhabitant Istanbul, just as the biggest city

of Turkey is not representative of Turkey.

It’s said there are four, if not, five Turkeys. There is Erdogan and his

fundamentalist Moslem followers; there is the military and the far-right

terrorist Ergenokon; there are the impoverished and largely illiterate

Anatolian masses; there are the minorities which make a third of the

country’s population; and then there is the outwardly-Europeanized

Istanbul metropolis. This Turkish bifurcation makes genuine Armenian

-Turkish negotiations a tough challenge. Who matters? Who should

we talk to?

Erdogan makes Armenians nervous. The man is not only a

fundamentalist Moslem, he is also a nationalist. He can be intemperate,

hectoring, arrogant, and threatening. Erdogan, who is busy these days,

like Pegasus, flying hither and thither, declaring Turkey to be the bridge

between East and West, between North and South, between Islam and

Europe, between Israel and the Arabs, between America and Azerbaijan

… can better utilize his time by overhauling the Turkish educational

system. For starters, he should push for the publication of history textbooks,

which dare tell the truth to Turks, especially to the new generation. Erdogan

should start by scrapping the mythical ridiculous history dictator Mustapha

Kemal foisted upon Turks. Lies such as “alleged-Genocide”, “Armenians

were fifth-columnists who collaborated with the Russian enemy” and

“ungrateful Armenians wanted to tear Turkey apart” should be tossed into

the dustbin of history. We realize that in the face of centuries of denigration

(“Bloody Turk”, “Sick Man of Europe”)—particularly in the West—Turkish

leaders and ruling classes had to overcompensate by inculcating among

Turks the belief that they are super special—superior to other races, such

as Armenians, Arabs, Greeks, Bulgarians… The hilarious Kemal fantasy

-historiography claims that the Turkic race is the father of humanity and that

most of humanity’s greatest inventions were ACTUALLY fruits of Turkish

genius!

For far too long, Turks have been fed lies by their government and their

educational system. To transform the brave efforts of the Istanbul intellectuals

into a nation-wide movement, Ankara has to come clean and tell the truth.

We realize that this is not an easy task: decades of orchestrated deception

can’t be erased in a few years. Millions of Turks know little or nothing about

Armenians, let alone be aware that Eastern Turkey was Armenia for nearly

4,000 years. It’s high time revisionist Turkish scholars and historians were

allowed to tell the truth about Turkey’s history. To gain credibility and respect,

Turkey has to discard its fantasy history. The longer Ankara delays this vital

project, longer will Turkish psychic ills continue to fester the Turkish body

politic, culture and society.

“Once bitten, twice shy” is an eloquent axiom. Armenians have been bitten

and …burned more than once by Turkish government’s mendacity—be

they the sultans, the Young Turks, Kemal and then his idolatrous followers.

Nearly a century ago our trust almost resulted in the extinction of our nation.

As much as we want to trust the “new” Turkey, we need concrete, credible,

meaningful proof of its good intentions.

Our Jewish/Israeli Problem
Team Keghart.com Editorial,

22 May 2010

`Dogs can enter, but no Jews, no Armenians'
Source: The Canadian Jewish News

For a small state, Israel certainly garners a great deal of
international media coverage and attention at global forums,
especially in the West. For a nation of 15 million, Jews likewise get
far more attention than nations (Brazil, Indonesia) which are more
than ten times numerous. We don't intend to go into all the religious,
political, economic, military, and media ownership reasons for the
above state of affairs. Here we intend to focus on the complex,
multi-layered, apparently contradictory relationship and attitude
Armenians harbor towards Jews and Israel. Our collective stance
towards Jews is particularly interesting because, for centuries, other
nations have commented on the close similarities between Armenians and
Jews. Nowadays, some people also see similarities between Armenia and
Israel--small countries surrounded by hostile neighbors; two states
which have reappeared on the political map after centuries of exile.

Like most states and nations, we have a multi-dimensional attitude
towards Jews/Israel--a unique brew of admiration and jealousy;
gratitude and disappointment; proximity and fear; identification and
hostility; condemnation and envy.

Historically, we have had mixed feelings about Jews. While our
religion is based on Judaism (most of our saints are Jewish),
historically and like other Christian nations we have condemned Jews
for crucifying Christ. We also do not appreciate the Chosen Race
pathology of some Jews. Meanwhile, a minority of Armenians blames
Christianity--progeny of Judaism--for most of the ills Armenians have
suffered in the past two millennia. A typical rhetoric of this
attitude goes like this: `Christ was crucified once; Armenians have
been crucified for Him for two-thousand years.' Then there's the
latent Aryan racism, among a minority of Armenians in Armenia who
would like to revive pagan, pre-Christian Armenia. This fringe group
considers non-Aryans--especially Jews--an undesirable race. The above
aberrant streaks are often wrapped up in the convenient--although
misleading--term of anti-Semitism. Yes, a minority of Armenians are
smitten by the universal disease of anti-Semitism.

Our traditional brand of anti-Semitism has been fed, in the past
century, by real or imaginary misdeeds of the Jews against Armenians.
Some Armenians believe that Tala't Pasha, a crypto Jew, and other key
members of Committee of Union and Progress, such as Emmanuel Carasso
and proto-Zionist Vladimir Jabotinsky, were responsible for the
Genocide of Armenians. Other Armenians also believe that Mustafa
Kemal, who tried to complete the slaughter the Young Turk had begun,
was also a secret Jew. The reason for the alleged Jewish hatred of
Armenians? Jews of the Ottoman Empire wanted to have a monopoly of the
professions in Turkey. They saw Armenians and Greeks as rivals. Still
other Armenians maintain that the Genocide of Armenians was initiated
by the Rothschilds, who had huge investments in the Baku oilfields and
saw politically mature Armenians as a divisive, anti-capitalist,
trouble-making presence in Southern Caucasus and in Anatolia.

Since Turkey was one of the first states to recognize Israel (in
addition to sending much-needed food to the new-born country in the
late `40s and the early `50s), there have been close diplomatic,
political, military, and economic ties between the two countries. One
negative outcome--for Armenians--of this friendship has been Israel's
denial of the Genocide of Armenians. As well, Israel has been a key
weapons provider and military/espionage trainer to the Azeris.
Consequently, it's no accident that Armenia's sole diplomatic presence
in Israel is a Jerusalem-born Armenian who acts as an honorary consul,
making appearances at low-level diplomatic functions.

Israel's denial of the Genocide of Armenians is made worse by Tel
Aviv's diktat to Jewish leaders living in the West (particularly in
the United States) to act on behalf of Ankara in the latter's campaign
to halt Armenian Genocide recognition. Israel's policies vis-à-vis the
Genocide has been particularly galling and hurtful to Armenians--a
long-suffering ethnic minority like the Jews. In addition to actively
promoting Turkish revisionism, Jewish-American historians (Bernard
Lewis, Guenter Lewy, Stanford Shaw, etc.) have been at the forefront
of the Turkey's North American campaign to deny the Genocide of
Armenians. This is compounded by some petty but mainstream North
American Jewish groups which see our Genocide as a `rival' to their
Shoah (Holocaust). Critics have called this a Jewish attempt at
`monopoly of misery'. Armenians are considered by these North American
Jews as `Johnny-come-lately' who is trespassing on the `Jewish
genocide turf'.

The above is further compounded by the widespread perception among
Armenians and other nations/states that Israelis and Diaspora Jews are
one and the same; that they march to the same drum beat. This
conclusion is a result of a widespread Jewish Diaspora attitude of
`Israel right or wrong'. No matter how deplorable Israeli foreign and
domestic policies, a large percentage of Diaspora Jews feel compelled
not to criticize Tel Aviv, no matter the barbaric policies of Menachim
Begin, Ariel Sharon, Benjamin Netanyahu, et al. Armenians are
particularly sensitive to the plight of Palestinians because they see
similarities between the tragedy of Palestinians and that of
Armenians, and because so many Diaspora Armenians were born or live in
Arab countries. Armenians also feel grateful to the Arabs for
welcoming our wounded, our exiled and impoverished parents and
grandparents, who found life-saving shelter in the Arab World after
the Genocide and deportations.

But Armenians also have positive feelings towards Jews as a people and
Israel as a state.

We admire how Jews, scattered all over the world, managed to
create--at an incredible speed--a prosperous, advanced, and militarily
powerful state in the Middle East. We also admire their love of
education, their discipline, creativity, innovative spirit, and
social/political activism wherever they reside. Take out the Jewish
communities from North America or from Britain and France and these
major Western countries will become far less dynamic and far less
exciting places to live. In the arts and in the sciences, Jews have
helped--more than any other ethnic group--decide the features of the
modern Western world.

While a number of Ankara-client Jewish historians have made life
difficult for Armenians and non-Armenians fighting for Armenian
Genocide recognition, a far greater number of Jewish historians have
supported the Armenian side. In fact, the most influential body of
genocide historians--The International Association of Genocide
Scholars (IAGS)--is largely made up of Jews. This crucial association
has published, at great expense, full-page ads in The New York Times,
The Washington Post and elsewhere to combat Turkish denials. A few
months ago the group also chided--in an open letter-- the Turkish
president for its blind denial of the Armenian Genocide. When it comes
to credibility, IAGS beats hands down all the high-priced Ankara
propaganda and the efforts of international public relations firms
hired by Turkey to deny the Genocide. And, of course, no Armenian
would fail to remember, with deep gratitude, Henry Morgenthau,
American Ambassador to Turkey; Franz Werfel (`The Forty Days of Mush
Dagh'), who in the `30s singlehanded revived Europe's and North
America's memories of the Genocide of Armenians. Armenians are also
grateful to jurist Rafael Lemkin, who coined the word `genocide' to
describe what the Young Turks had done; and to missionary/amateur
diplomat Dr. Johannes Lepsius. As Armenians know, the first three were
Jews, while Dr. Lepsius was half-Jewish.

It's immoral, illogical, racist, and self-defeating for Armenians to
lump all Jews together when it comes to our national and state
relations. Right now Israel is no friend of Armenia or Armenians,
although recent Erdogan criticism of Israel might impact
Israeli/Turkish and Israeli/Armenian relations. Meanwhile, Diaspora
Armenians should approach Diaspora Jews as individuals. Some will be
our friends; others will be beating the Turkish drum. Let's not
estrange or lose our Jewish friends by tarnishing them with the same
black and broad brush, and automatically assume that they are
ignorant, blind or uncaring of our just struggle. Let us work to make
our common interests and mutual admiration determine our relationship,
rather than be swept by the negative tides. Ankara would love to see
dissension between Armenians and Jews.